


Until Death Do Us Part

by blueelvewithwings



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Burns, Cuddles, Forgiveness, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending, Harm to Len, Harm to Mick, Hurt/Comfort, It takes an Oculus explosion and a lot of time for them to find their way back to one another, Len and Mick are stuck in a spiral of hurting one another after 2046, M/M, Making Up, Oculus Explosion, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, Whump, estranged husbands, in this the focus is definitely on the worst, they are the best and the worst thing that happened to one another, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-12 00:55:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18000734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueelvewithwings/pseuds/blueelvewithwings
Summary: Mick and Len are both the best and the worst thing that happened to the other. Recently, they've only been the worst. Len marooned Mick in the middle of nowhere, Mick abducted and mistreated Len as Chronos, and then the cycle just went on. It takes an Oculus explosion, repeated life-saving and a painful, painful conversation for them to find their way back into one another's arms.





	Until Death Do Us Part

**Author's Note:**

> //So this started with the thought 'what if Len doesn't manage to knock Mick out at the Oculus' and before I knew it I had written 7k of whump. I don't know what's up with me xD  
> Betaed by the lovely SophiaCatherine!!

The first thing that came back to him was how wrong it all had been. He blinked awake inside the glass cell on the Waverider, and he immediately closed his eyes against the harsh, bright light.

Mick wondered why his teammates would lock him up in the brig like he posed a danger to them. 

That’s because I’m gonna kill them, Chronos thought.

Mick closed his eyes again, and only opened them again when the first of them came to pay him a visit. He saw Rip fucking Hunter stare at him with such a distrustful stare that it was all too easy to give back a biting remark and spit insults at him, letting Chronos lead him to threaten them with immediate death should they let him out. 

And then the others came, slowly, one by one, and no one stayed with him for more than a few moments. And every time, it was so easy to give in to the temptation, to let himself fall and become Chronos again. Chronos who wanted them all dead, who wanted to see the world burn. Chronos, who didn’t care about anyone, was driven by nothing but rage and fury and the Time Masters’ commands. Mick knew that he used to be different, that he used to care under all his anger, but it was hard to try and get into touch with that part of himself again. And really, he didn’t see why he should. They didn’t deserve anything better. 

And then  _he_ came. 

Chronos watched him as he strolled up to the door of the cell and turned, and then they were watching one another for a long moment before Chronos broke the silence.

“What do you want?”

“People seem to think we should have a heart to heart,” Snart replied, to which Chronos shot back: 

“We don’t have hearts. Where does that leave us?”

He remembered a time when he had a heart, when he had cared about and loved the man on the other side of the glass, but now there was nothing but fury and the thirst for revenge. He also remembered a time where Leonard Snart wouldn’t have left him marooned in time, a present for the Time Masters to pick up and torture into being their pet bounty hunter.

“I’ve got a dozen reasons for killing you, you’ve got a dozen and one for killing me, so-“

“-all the talk in the world’s not gonna change a thing,” Chronos finished for him. He could tell that Snart was putting up a front, and that he was up to something, but he couldn’t quite pin down what it was. He was half expecting Snart to walk out now, after their nonexistent heart to heart, and be done with it. 

But instead, Snart spoke again: “Exactly. So here’s my proposal: I open this cell, we let our fists do the talking.” Snart was looking slightly to the side, not quite meeting Chronos’ eyes. It was almost as if he knew exactly what he was getting himself into, with a proposition like that. 

Chronos stood and slowly walked towards the glass, closely eyeing Snart through it. 

“When I kill you?” Because really, when it came to physical fights between the two of them, it would be a when, and not an if. They had known each other for long enough to know that. Snart knew it, too, Chronos could see it in his eyes. Why he would still offer it was beyond him at this point.

“You take the jump ship, make your escape, live out the rest of your life anywhere you like.” The statement was accompanied by Snart’s signature shrug, as if he didn’t care. But Chronos knew how to read people, and he especially knew how to read Snart. Snart cared. He cared so much that he’d rather see Chronos getting away at the cost of his own life than to see him locked up anymore. What a sentimental fool. But no, he thought, that wasn’t quite correct. Snart wanted to see _Mick_ get away, probably out of some misguided sense of duty or honor or some such shit. Well, just as well, then Chronos would get to kill Snart first. It was strangely fitting, really. 

He grunted, then looked over to check Snart out again. “And if you kill me… well, it’s better than being locked up in this place than some kind of circus freak,” he growled. 

“I take that as a yes.” Snart tried to sound bored, but Chronos knew that it was fake. Well, he couldn’t blame the guy for being nervous when he was about to die, really. 

So he just tilted his head and stared right at him. 

“Sound the bell.”

A few hits in, with the first bruises starting to bloom on Snart’s face, Chronos paused for a bit, watching Snart as he struggled to catch his breath. 

“Why are you doing this?”

“It’s _until death do us part_ , Mick. If I can help it I’ll make sure it’s my death, not yours.”

Ah yes, the husband thing. So sweet and sentimental. 

Chronos let his fist crash right into Snart’s stomach, making sure to land high enough to crack a few of the lower ribs on his former partner’s body. 

“Well, I ain’t staying for the funeral.”

It took a pathetically short amount of time for Chronos to bring Snart down, and soon he was hovering over him, fist drawn back to deliver a final blow, staring down into Snarts bruised face. All he wanted was to slam his fist down, again and again, until nothing but a bloody mess remained of what had once been his husband’s handsome face, but something was holding him back. 

He couldn’t. 

He just couldn’t. 

He let himself fall back, sitting next to Snart and looking over his prone form. Bruises and cuts were everywhere over his face, and he could hear from the laboured breathing that he must indeed have succeeded in breaking some of Snart’s ribs. It would be so easy now. So easy. 

“We had a deal, Mick. Kill me and you walk.”

Mick.

Mick couldn’t kill Leonard, no matter how much Chronos wanted to kill Snart. 

“That’s what you want, isn’t it, to get off the team?” It almost tore Mick’s heart out to hear that pained whisper, as if he almost couldn’t talk through the pain. Pain that Mick had caused him. Injuries that his husband’s hands gave to him. 

“I don’t know what I want anymore” he whispered back, staring out of the cell just so he wouldn’t have to look at Leonard anymore. “Truth is, it doesn’t matter.”

When Jax found them sometime later, Snart was barely conscious anymore, but instead of letting Mick carry him they called for Haircut to come and help Jax. They made Mick sit on the bridge with everyone else in brooding silence until Leonard came limping out of the med bay and took a seat somewhere on the far wall of the room. Only then did the others start to ask questions, and Mick started answering them as well as he could. Maybe his chances of getting away from the Hunters were better in this group, after all. He knew that he wouldn’t make it alone. 

His eyes kept straying over to Snart, who always watched him warily. He looked so small there, curled up on a chair, clearly in pain, with bruises and scabs all over his face. Mick shuddered at the thought that he’d put them there himself. 

But then, he reminded himself, Snart was also the one who’d taken him away from his dreamworld and left him stranded in some godforsaken forest for years, never coming back until it was too late. So really, he’d had it coming. 

He stood in the door to their old room a while later, silently watching Snart renewing the bandages around his torso. From the way he winced, Mick had clearly gotten a few good hits in. Kinda served him right. 

“You got something to say or are you just there to gloat?” Leonard asked him, glaring over at him. He’d always been much too perceptive, Mick remembered. He took a step inside, then took a seat on one of the chairs on the wall as Leonard started to reach for his cold gun. 

“Not here to hurt you, Snart.”

“Well, that’d be the first time in a long while.”

“It’s not like we’ve never had a fist fight before,” Mick growled, but Leonard just rolled his eyes. 

“Not what I was talking about, Mick.”

“Not like you were overly friendly recently either, remember?”

Leonard sighed and grabbed a new roll of gauze, carefully and awkwardly starting to wrap it around himself. “Yeah. I thought I could protect you from yourself.”

“I don’t need protecting. You need help with that or what?”

That just got him a cold, pointed stare. “Not from you, certainly.”

Deciding that he wasn’t nearly drunk enough for this, Mick stood and left without another word. 

That night he slept in his old workroom, on his weightlifting bench. He hadn’t seen Snart again after their conversation, and he wasn’t really eager to. But something kept floating around the back rooms of his brain, and he just couldn’t get it out of his head. 

“Not what I was talking about, Mick.”

_The first attempt hadn’t worked, and Chronos was beyond frustrated. Fucking Lisa Snart was too good, her brother had taught her how to defend herself all too well. So Chronos let the door fall closed behind him and ripped off his helmet. He growled as he approached his prisoner, and the frightened stare that Snart regarded him with was almost enough to make him feel at least a little satisfied. But no, it wasn’t enough. Snart would have to_ pay _for once._

“ _Well, if I can’t get your sister, I guess you will have to do for now,” he grunted, and it irked him to see Snart’s face shifting from fear into resignation almost immediately. Well, if he thought Chronos would just kill him and be done with it, he was wrong._

_He swiftly grabbed his prisoner by the hips and flipped him over, pushing him into the railing he was chained to. Two swift moves and his jeans and underwear were ripped and hanging around his knees._

“ _Mick, no-”_

“ _Mick hasn’t existed in a long time, Snart. Not since you abandoned him.”_

“ _No, Mick-”_

“ _There’s no Mick here, no one to take pity on you.” He already had two fingers up inside Snart then, pumping and scissoring and opening him up in the way he knew to be most painful._

“ _Mick, please-”_

“ _Why, with pleasure, my love,” he growled and pulled his fingers back, only to replace them with his cock._

“ _I always wanted to know what it would be like to fuck you, to reduce you to nothing with my cock. But you were always so proud and so domineering, and I knew you’d never give up control like this. But now… now you’re at my mercy, Snart, and I’m fresh out.”_

_By the time he was done with him, Snart’s face was swollen and messy with tears and snot, and it was quite ugly, really. Chronos wiped his cock on Snart’s jacket and then walked away, leaving him slumped on the floor with his clothes torn down and Chronos’ come trickling out of his abused ass. Served him right, really._

Mick woke with a gasp from the nightmare he’d been having. Only that it hadn’t been a nightmare. He could remember it now, quite clearly, Leonard’s begging, his crying, his promises to do anything, anything at all, if Mick would only stop. And Chronos… he’d taken a sick pleasure in it, Mick could remember the slide of his cock inside of Leonard’s ass, could remember how the body under his had shaken and trembled with sobs, could still hear the dull thud as he’d just let him fall do the ground afterwards. 

Come to think of it, Leonard had never met his eyes afterwards. 

He’d been cowed after, silent, and he’d let Chronos do with him whatever he wanted. He’d still pleaded for his sister’s life, once, but a slap across the face had silenced him quickly. 

Mick wasn’t surprised that in the end, he’d frozen off his own hand to escape.

Without even thinking Mick found himself upright and walking through the empty halls of the Waverider in nothing but his boxers and a tattered undershirt. He found the way to their old room even with the lights out, and the door easily slid open under his hands. 

Once inside, he immediately found himself face to face with the business end of the cold gun. 

“What do you want, Mick? Another chat? Or something else? I’m sorry, that shop’s closed now.”

Mick patted along the wall until he found the light switch, then took a step back so he was pressed flush against the wall, maybe in an attempt to show Leonard he didn’t mean any harm, he had no idea. 

“Did I… did I really do that?”

“Do what, Mick? Try to kill my sister? Abduct me? Rape your own husband? Beat me up and almost kill me? The answer to all of them is yes, so you’ll understand I don’t particularly want you in my room. Especially not in the middle of the night, so if you’ll kindly get out.”

That was just like Len, really, to completely compartmentalize what was going on. Mick was sure he hadn’t dealt with any of those issues yet, and he wouldn’t, if no one would press him into it. That was just Leonard Snart, pushing everything away into his mental strongbox and then hoping that it would die in there. 

“I really… Len, I-” And that was as far as he got before he had to turn around and retch. He hadn’t eaten a lot since they’d taken him captive, but somehow everything came back to him now, and he felt so disgusted with himself, with what he’d done to Leonard, and he bent over and heaved, even though he knew he should at least try and get it outside of their room. 

“Well, I’m not helping you clean that up,” Leonard declared and then marched right past him out of the room, clad in pyjamas and cold gun in hand. 

Strange, Snart had always slept in the nude.

When he was done Mick did hunt down the cleaning supplies by himself, and he cleared up every trace of his mess before going back to his temporary room. He halfway hoped to find Snart there, waiting for him, but he wasn’t. Sighing, Mick went back to bed, knowing that he’d relive the same scene over and over again know until morning finally came. 

Leonard seemed to be glued to Sara’s side for the next days, and he never came closer to Mick than sitting on the opposite end of the table for mealtimes. Part of Mick didn’t mind that. After all, Leonard had betrayed him repeatedly, knocked him out, left him to die, even though he claimed he would have come back for him. Really, how was Mick to know if he could still trust him? Another part of Mick desperately wanted to be close to Leonard again, to touch him, to somehow try and make it up. To somehow get back to where they’d been at, and to hold him in his arms again. It didn’t seem like Leonard was remotely interested in something like that though, so Mick didn’t approach him. 

It was weird, going back to his tiny little closet of a room every night, knowing that Leonard would sleep in their bed all alone. Truth be told, Mick didn’t know if he was alone, and he also didn’t know if he’d have any right to object if it wasn’t the case. 

Sara sometimes looked at him as if he was pitying him, but other than that, everyone seemed to take Leonard’s side. Not that Leonard seemed to want that, he stayed away from all of them apart from Sara, as far as Mick could tell. The bruises on his face were slowly healing, but Mick knew that the wounds on the inside would take much longer to heal, if they’d ever heal at all. He wanted to make it up to him, but he had no idea how. Especially not while he was still torn between being Mick and being Chronos, and with so much leftover pent up anger about what Leonard had done to him. 

They’d just end up in another fist fight, and Mick couldn’t stomach the thought of hurting Leonard more. 

He joined in in all their group activities again, and of course, things went south really fast, just like always. It felt like no time at all had passed before Mick found himself back in the hated chair that he’d been in before and stared into the face of the monster that had turned him into Chronos the last time. 

Last time, his anger and rage at the Legends had been what had kept him partly Mick, and this time it was Len’s face, bruised and battered and ready to accept death at the hands of his own husband, just so he could escape. He wouldn’t let it go that far again. 

And so he pretended. He closed his eyes and opened them again, and when they asked him who he was he twisted his lips into a cruel smirk. “Chronos.”

They believed him, and soon he was back in his Chronos suit and decked out with new guns, on his way to keep his own teammates in check. Seeing Snart in his cell nearly made him drop all his masks, but he managed to pull through until his tormentor’s skull was crushed under his boot. 

Everything went fast then, almost as if in a haze, and even though Mick knew that he gave a lot of the input, that he shared knowledge he’d gained through his time as Chronos, he couldn’t really follow the line of events anymore. Everything was moving fast, as they were trying to get ahead of Savage and the Time Masters once and for all. But operating against someone that could manipulate time itself was always easier said than done. 

Things snapped back into focus when he saw Haircut standing there, grimly holding down the damn lever just like they’d seen in the Oculus before, resigned to the fact that he’d have to die now. But he didn’t, Mick realised. He didn’t have to. Nothing was holding him back from taking Haircut’s place. On the contrary, maybe he’d finally have a chance to make some things right again. Maybe Leonard would find it in himself to forgive him one day, if Mick took Haircut’s place now and made sure all the others got out in time. 

So without allowing himself any time to think, Mick walked up to Haircut and knocked him out, tossing him over to one of the others as they all ran out. He thought it was the Englishman, but he didn’t really care. Leonard was outside, and that was all that mattered. So he pressed down on the stick, and then he waited. 

He was idly wondering if it would hurt to be blown apart like that or if he’d be dead before his brain would register the pain, when the one person he didn’t want to see showed up next to him, shooting a stream of ice at a Time Master before yelling at him. 

“Mick, what are you doing?”

“Haircut said someone’s gotta hold the stick for this thing to blow, so I’m holding the stick!” Mick gave back, charring another Time Master to ashes with his own gun. 

“My old friend,” Snart murmured, and suddenly Mick knew where this was going even before anything had happened. 

_It’s until death do us part, Mick. And if I can help it I’ll make sure it’s my death, not yours._

“Please forgive me.”

I’ll forgive you anything, but not if you let yourself be blown up for my sake, Mick thought. Len was fast though - the cold gun connected with his head before he could even move his own to try and defend himself. Stars exploded somewhere behind his eyes, and he could feel his grip on the lever slipping as he fell over and slumped to the ground. 

But the thing was, Mick Rory had a thick skull. And thanks to his idiot of a husband, he also had a lot of practice in being hit over the head. So he had one hell of a headache now, but Snart had not succeeded in knocking him out. He wasn’t even looking at Mick though, not after he’d dropped his cold gun and his wedding ring on him, but was stubbornly holding down the damn stick.

Mick Rory knew that he wasn’t always the brightest candle on the cake, but he also knew when an idea he had was good, so he sat up, unnoticed by Snart, and grabbed the cold gun himself. It felt wrong to be holding it, but he reached forward and grabbed Snart’s hand, pulling it away just as he shot a stream of ice at the lever. 

There, that should hold it down. 

He grabbed Snart’s hand and pulled, leading him down from the weird pedestal the Oculus was standing on and towards the exit. 

“Not gonna make it,” Snart panted behind him, then pulled his hand out of Mick’s to place it on his side as he bent over. 

Shit, his cracked ribs. 

“Not fast enough. Run, Mick. Go!”

Mick could see the light from the Oculus changing, growing more intense, more charged, as if it was going to explode any second. The Time Masters seemed too occupied with staring at the Oculus to pay them much attention anymore, but Mick knew they didn’t have much time left. He could still make it, he thought, running out there at full speed, jumping into the Waverider at the last moment. But Len… He wouldn’t be fast enough if he was carrying Len, and Len couldn’t run anymore. So really, what was he to do?

“Mick, run!” Len sounded almost desperate now, and Mick made his decision. 

Just as the light of the Oculus became impossibly blue Mick grabbed his husband and tossed him on the floor, throwing himself on top of him, shielding him with his body as he let the explosion wash over them. 

_It’s until death do us part, Mick. And if I can help it I’ll make sure it’s my death, not yours._

_No, Lenny. If I can help it, I’ll make sure it’s mine._

When he woke up again, the first thing he realised was that he was lying on his front. There was soft bedding under his chest and stomach, and his face was propped up by a pillow and turned to the side so he could breathe. The side of his face that came in contact with the fabric was somehow burning terribly. 

As far as he could tell, his entire backside was bare, and it felt like someone was having a nice firepit going on his back and the coals had spread all over the rest of his body, too. 

He slowly blinked his eyes open and stared directly at his hand. His hand that was being held by someone else’s, gently held and cradled between two very familiar, long-fingered hands. His own hand was bandaged up to the fingertips, and the bandages seemed to go up his arm, too. 

It was very confusing. 

He wanted to ask what was up, but all he could manage was a low grunt. That seemed to be enough to get Len’s attention though. There was his face in Mick’s view just a few moments later, and Mick couldn’t quite pin down why it would look so puffy and red and like he’d cried.

“Here, I’ll get you some water.” He found his head being lifted by very careful hands, but still somehow some of the coals fell out of the fire and spread out over his entire body, especially his shoulders. He drank some of the water that was being offered to him, and then the coals rolled back into the fire as his head was lowered down again. 

“Why can’t I move?” he asked, but by the time Leonard replied he was too close to sleep already again to understand what he said. 

By the time he woke up again, Sara was sitting next to the bed, and Mick was lucid enough to understand that when your entire back is burned so heavily that even Gideon can’t fix it up completely and you’re lucky to even still be alive, you can’t move properly. His entire body was bandaged by then, but he was still lying on his front so his back would not be aggravated. Haircut came by then and quietly thanked Mick for saving his life, and then the professor and the kid came and told him he’d done a great job of saving Snart. Kendra told him that he was only still alive because Snart had powered up his gun and shot a stream of ice into the explosion, cooling it off just enough that it wouldn’t be lethal. 

The Englishman showed up, gave him a terse nod and then disappeared again. Mick thought he’d like roasting the Englishman’s back just like his own was roasted now. 

Snart only showed back up when Mick was sitting up for the first time, and he leaned against the doorway and pretended to be bored as he watched Mick trying not to scream in pain just from sitting on his ass. 

“Why’d you do it?”

Mick looked at him, looked at the fading bruises on his face and the scabbed cuts, still left over from their fight, and just shook his head. 

“If I can help it, I’ll make sure it’s my death, not yours, Snart.”

Leonard let out a little huff of laughter and looked away. “Well, luckily we both seem to be resilient bastards.”

He only lingered a few moments longer, then left again before Mick could say anything else. Mick wanted to feel upset about him not even saying thank you, but then in his inner eye he saw Len broken and crying, crumpled on the floor with Chronos’ seed seeping out of him. 

Yeah. He wouldn’t say thank you either. 

Once again, Snart almost seemed to disappear after that. Wherever Mick went, Snart did not go. He sat as far away as possible from him at mealtimes and was nowhere to be found if Mick went looking for him otherwise. Not that Mick did a lot of looking, most of the time he was still busy not screaming in pain. 

He’d always taken a sick liking to burns, to fire and its power, and he would admit to deliberately sticking his fingers too close to the fire more than once just to feel its power. And even if it hadn’t been deliberate he’d never really minded burns, or burn scars. They’d been a badge of honour, somehow, and a point of pride.

But this… this was anything but. This felt like there was a fire living inside his skin, and not the good kind, either. He hadn’t known there was a bad kind of fire before, but this one clearly qualified. He needed to put some cream on his burns a few times a day, and he mostly recruited Haircut to do so. He’d ask Sara, but she was usually off where Leonard was, which meant she was not where Mick went. 

The only time that Mick saw Leonard during these days was on one such occasion, where Mick sat with his torso bared and Haircut was behind him, spreading cream on his burns with impossibly gentle hands. Leonard came walking into Mick’s room, then frowned as he saw the scene in front of him and walked right back out. 

By the time Mick had gotten Haircut’s hands off him and his shirt on, Len was gone from the hallway without a trace. 

Their next conversation happened in the middle of the night. Somehow it seemed to be a thing for them, Mick mused. He’d aimlessly wandered the hallways of the Waverider as he came to a halt in front of Leonard’s door. He found that walking around sometimes helped when he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t sleep on his front, and sleeping on his back was impossible still. Sleeping on his side sometimes worked for a while, but it never lasted long. 

Just like the last time, Leonard’s door slid open easily under his hands, and just like the last time, Snart was awake. He didn’t point a gun at Mick though, but sat up in bed much too straight for it to be casual. 

Mick sighed and took a seat on one of the chairs again. 

“You know what day it is?”

“Saturday. Why?”

“Not what I meant, Snart.”

Snart huffed and looked down, playing with the sleeves of his pyjamas. 

“So what do you want me to say then? Happy anniversary, come have another piece of my ass that you’ve apparently been wanting for years? Maybe I should let you have a go again, this time consensual? Or maybe I should return the favour and just take you without asking or caring. It’s our anniversary after all, and that’s how one celebrates, isn’t it?”

Mick rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. He had no idea how to talk about this. 

“Snart, you know I-”

“That’s not my name!” A book came flying towards Mick, and he jumped back, startled. His back crashed into the wall painfully and he heard himself wheezing pathetically before he got himself back under control. 

It occurred to him that he’d never heard Len raise his voice before. 

“Leonard, I… That wasn’t me.”

“Yeah, so you kept telling me at the time. You also said you wanted my ass long before we even went on this fucking time ship, so what am I supposed to make of that?”

“Len, I-”

Snart raised an eyebrow to look at him, but Mick really didn’t know what to say. Len wouldn’t believe him anyway if he’d say that he hadn’t ever thought about it like that before, even though it would be true. 

“Well, if you have nothing to say I’m sure you’ll understand I’d rather celebrate by myself than with my rapist, so if you’d see yourself out that would be great.”

Mick was tempted to toss the book right back at Len and yell at him, rage at him for knocking him out repeatedly, disrespecting his wishes and leaving him stranded in time. But he knew that Len was convinced he’d done the right thing. And given how he’d come back to save Mick from blowing himself up in the Oculus even though he’d been beyond pissed at him, Mick had started to believe that Len would really have come back for him. That he would have picked him up just seconds after he left, eyes watery with tears he’d never let himself shed. It really wasn’t the same, then. So Mick kept his mouth closed and just stood, walking out of the room and letting the doors slide closed behind himself. 

It was almost morning, and he’d tossed from side to side all night long without getting a wink of sleep when the door to his room slid open and Leonard came in. Mick struggled himself into an upright position, ready for the next fight, but Leonard just sat down next to him and leaned back a little bit with a frown. It took Mick a moment to understand that he was looking over his burns. Mick himself hadn’t been able to move enough to look at them himself yet. 

“Are they pretty at least?” he asked, just to make some type of conversation, and Leonard gave a little snort beside him. 

“I think you’ll find them absolutely magnificent when you see them.”

“Can’t wait, then.”

“Yeah, you should wait until they stop wetting and tearing open with every movement though,” Snart instructed him, and Mick could feel little pools of pain where his fingers ghosted over Mick’s back. 

“You wanted something?” he asked, and Snart pulled his hands back as if he’d been burned himself. Come to think of it, Mick could spot a burn mark on his cheek, and one of his hands was bandaged, too. He immediately felt bad for not having managed to cover all of Len in that explosion. He didn’t mind getting hurt, but every injury that Leonard sustained felt like someone had stabbed him in the heart. 

So much for not caring, Mick Rory.

“Yeah, I just...” Leonard shrugged and trailed off, looking around Mick’s room as if he would find answers in the scattered tools and dirty laundry. He reached over and plucked the ring from the nightstand that he’d slipped into Mick’s pocket after attempting to knock him out, then dropped it into Mick’s palm. He held out his right hand, palm down, fingers spread, and there were only very slight tremors running through his fingers. 

“Until death do us part?” he asked, and didn’t look at Mick. Mick looked down at the ring in his hand, one of the two they’d stolen from the jeweler two cities over from where they’d held an officiant at gun point and made him sign their marriage papers. And then they’d exchanged their rings, a yellow gold one with a fire red ruby for Len and a white gold one with a gorgeously blue sapphire for Mick. Mick had no idea where his ring had gone, it had been missing after he’d come back from being Chronos. But Len’s ring was still here, and he twisted it to look at the nicely cursive script inside spelling out his own name and their marriage date. Jewelers were very forthcoming when threatened with a bullet in their brain, they’d found out. 

He looked up at Len and watched the side of his face as Len stared at the wall. He carefully lifted a still-bandaged hand and caressed the slightly burned cheek with the back of his fingers. Len turned his face towards him again with something unreadable in his eyes, but he didn’t try to shake Mick off. So he dropped his hand again and held on to Len’s instead, carefully maneuvering the ring onto his finger. 

“In sickness and in health.”

He lifted Len’s hand and bent down as much as he could without screaming in pain, then dropped a peck on the back of Len’s hand. 

Len just smiled and picked up the jar of cream from the nightstand. 

“You need some help with this?”

Instead of a reply Mick simply turned around so his back was turned to Len. He heard the lid of the jar being unscrewed and then the cooling sensation of the cream being spread on was there. Just like Haircut, Len was absolutely meticulous, making sure to get every last inch of skin covered. 

They were so good at this talking thing. Every time, Mick wondered how they’d managed to get together in the first place, with how little they could deal with feelings. But he also remembered them being younger, or being high on adrenaline and high on hormones, and that always made it easier. 

But somehow they’d have to talk about this, or it would always stay between them. So Mick closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and jumped. 

“I’m sorry, Len. For what he… what I… for what happened.”

“How’s that gonna change anything?”

“It’s not. It’s just… I wanted you to know that.”

There was a bit of silence while Len continued to work in the cream, and Mick tried to hold back moans at the relief it brought with it. 

“Would you do it again?” Len suddenly asked him, and Mick tensed. 

“Rape you… again?”

“Yeah.”

Mick swivelled around fast enough that his entire body screamed in pain, but he paid it no mind as he placed both hands on Len’s cheeks, causing the gauze to dig into his burns painfully. 

“No,” he said, with as much emotion as he could push into a single syllable. “No, Len, I would never-”

“You did, though.”

“That wasn’t me! I was brainwashed and tortured and not in my right mind!”

“So how’s that different from when you stare at a fire for too long and get in the mood and you’re high on pyro-hormones and you want some?”

Mick took a deep breath and released Len’s face. He sat back and pressed himself against the wall, ignoring the pain and the cream stains he’d be sure to leave. He would need this pain to ground himself. 

“It’s difficult to explain,” he started, and held up a hand as Len opened his mouth. “I’ll try. Gimme some time.”

He closed his eyes and drew his knees up, resting his palms on top of them as he tried to put into words what he was feeling. 

“When I see fire and it excites me, it’s… I’m still me. I’m still Mick Rory, still your husband, still Lisa’s friend. I’m just riled up and horny, but a no is a no. When I get worked up about fire, I still… I still care about you. 

“When they made me into Chronos, they… they took away everything that makes me Mick, you see? They took away the fire, and the excitement. They stripped away all the feelings. They want a killing machine, and a killing machine doesn’t feel. And I was… I don’t know, I was still Mick in there, but not really? I still knew you, but I didn’t care. All I knew was rage and hatred and killing, and then it was so easy, because...” He closed his eyes, as if he could hold the tears in that way, but that just made them spill over. 

“...because I hated you in that moment.” He knew his voice was barely more than a whisper, but Len must have heard him anyway. He gave a little hum, and then Mick felt the thin mattress move as Len shifted on the bed. 

“When they made you into Chronos the second time, you came out of it really soon again.”

Mick huffed out a laugh and nodded. “Yeah. Was easier the second time.”

“How come?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you again,” Mick shrugged, and was wholly unprepared for the hand that came to rest on the uninjured part of his arm. 

“And then you came and saved my life after I’d been nothing but an ass to you?”

“Yeah, that was after you came to save my life after I’d abducted you and raped you,” Mick countered, and somehow that caused Len to giggle, the way one did when the tension just got too high. 

“We’re great at this whole taking care of one another thing, aren’t we?”

Mick placed his hand on top of Len’s on his arm and allowed himself the tiniest of smiles. “We both seem pretty determined to be the one that dies first, at least. Does that count?”

Len shifted beside him again, and after some shuffling around Mick found himself with his arm over Len’s shoulder while Len’s head rested on the side of his chest. “You think we’re gonna be okay?”

“I think so,” Mick grumbled slowly, “but we might need to get better at that talking thing again? My head can only take so many hits.” That had Len push himself up and press a feather light kiss to his scalp just at the edge of the burn before settling back down. 

“Thank you, Mick. For saving my life.”

Mick just tightened his arm around Len and held him, and for a while, they just sat there quietly. But then Len pulled away and stood, holding out his hand.

“Come to bed. I’ll finish treating your back and then we can sleep. I hear we have a celebration tomorrow.” Mick let himself be pulled to his feet and grabbed the jar of cream along the way. 

“We gonna celebrate tomorrow? I can’t bake us a cake though...”

“We’ll find another way to celebrate then,” Len shrugged and took Mick’s hand as they slowly made their way through the Waverider. “Just no sex. Not up for that yet.”

“No sex for as long as you need, Len. I promise.”

Len stopped walking and looked over at Mick, almost as if he wanted to see right through him. After a moment of this, he nodded and started walking again. “I believe you.”

Once they were back in Len’s room Len had Mick lay down on his front and then proceeded to lather him up with the cream from top to bottom. Mick let himself drift off at the gentle ministrations, and only rose again from half-sleep when Len nudged him to budge over. 

“We’re gonna need to steal a new ring for you, if yours went missing,” Len told him. Mick just hummed, brushing a hand through Len’s short hair after scooting over to allow Len to join him. 

“Call me crazy, but I love you, Leonard Snart,” he murmured. In response, he got a swift slap against his forearm. 

“That’s not my name.”

An image floated up in his mind then, a memory from twenty-five years ago, of a marriage contract signed, and a name change that was attached to it. They’d never told this to anyone, and they’d burned the contract that same evening, but for a while, Len had treasured that secret more than any material possessions they’d had at the time. So Mick let his lips stretch into a lazy smile and pulled his husband close. 

“Call me crazy, but I love you, Leonard Rory,” he whispered, and Len chuckled into his neck where he had his face buried.

“Much better.”

They were quiet for a while then, but for once Mick was not afraid of the nightmares as he drifted off. He was sure that now, with the thing that meant most to him in the entire world safely wrapped up in his arms, where he belonged, the nightmares would stay away. 

Just before he drifted off, he thought he heard Len speak again. 

“We’ll sort it out, somehow. We will. I love you too, Mick Rory. Happy silver wedding anniversary.”

And what a great anniversary it would be. Len was at his side, where he belonged, and they’d continue to stick together. For the next twenty-five years and longer. Until death would finally come to part them. He was sure of it. And really, that was all that mattered, for now. 


End file.
